The event features four provocative presentations by graduate students from UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.

On Dispossession explores the dynamics of power relations that deprive persons of place, livelihood and sense of selfhood.

The presentations look at the idea of the gendered self as framed in digital space to an analysis of the structures of this virtual space as a system of surveillance and control in the service of late capitalism; then looks at examples in the built environment and urban development as particular manifestations of these power dynamics at play in local communities that materialize as Gentrification and Art Washing.

Organized by Greig Crysler and Rudy Lemcke

This panel is part of a series of public presentations held in conjunction with the Precarious Lives exhibition opening at SOMArts Cultural Center in June 2019 and curated by Creative Labor for the National Queer Arts Festival.

BIOGRAPHYJordan Reznick is a photographer and photo historian living and making work in the Bay Area. They develop photographic projects within their own communities, working with the entangled agency and vulnerability of the photographer with their sitters. Their Queer Babes project has been exhibited widely, including at Aperture Gallery and Handwerker Gallery in New York, Portland Art Museum in Oregon, and Romer Young Gallery in San Francisco. Reznick teaches photography practice, history and theory at San Francisco Art Institute and is completing a Ph.D. in Visual Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. They earned an MFA in Photography and an MA in Visual &amp; Critical Studies from California College of the Arts, and a BFA in Photography from New York University. http://www.jordanreznick.com/

The Emerging Scholars Program (ESP) brings together recent graduates in the disciplines of Fine Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and Environmental Design disciplines whose work explores gender identity and issues relevant to queer and trans people of color with Bay Area non-profit, community based arts and social service organizations for a series of conversations that will bring community perspective to their work and develop a network of queer scholars and community partners to foster collaborative research, workshops and cultural events that will enrich the lives of the queer community. This program is being organized by the Queer Cultural Center in partnership with California College of the Arts and UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.